Every Tuesday I share a Habit Hack. They are tricks I use in my personal life an with my PT-clients to make it easier for us to make changes in our everyday life. In my work it mostly revolves around health, meaning exercise, nutrition, sleep and stress. But the hacks can of course be used in any aspect of your life.

Habit hack: Raise the bar.

Since we are all unique different hacks will work for different people. A couple of weeks ago I wrote a habit hack that encouraged you to lower the bar (read more about that here) and how that can make you feel more satisfied with your accomplishments. Today is about the exact opposite. This weeks hack is about raising the bar. When we get overwhelmed and have a lot going on we tend to try and lighten the load and throw stuff overboard to make it easier for us. But something that I’ve experienced, with myself and a lot of my clients, is that it can feel refreshing and freeing to instead ask more from ourselves and say “I’m gonna expect more from myself”. It gives a feeling of a greater potential and faith in your own ability to accomplish.

An example when I’ve raised the bar for myself was when I started this blog. My life was completely upside down, I’d just started a new career, I was in the middle of graduating to be a nutritionist and I had just moved to a new city. If anyone would’ve asked me then if I wanted to take on a new responsibility that would take up a lot of my time and consist of a lot of deadlines I would’ve said ” thanks but no thanks, I barely have time to go grocery shopping”. But it turned out great! I’ve always loved writing, taking and editing pictures and most of all inspiring people. And by taking on this challenge and raising the bar for myself I’ve gotten to explore all of these passions that I’ve always had and it has made me so happy!

But you need to be careful with where you raise the bar. Make sure that it is in something that is true to yourself and not some fantasy version of you. I had a period when I wanted to cook advanced meals cause it just seemed like such a nice and meditative thing to do. The ones of you that have been following me for a while can probably guess how that ended, haha. So make sure you give it a good thought and raise the bar to improve yourself. If you’re good in the kitchen, make it your challenge to cook really good food filled with nutrients. If you like running, get really good at it. Find your thing and raise the bar!

I really hope this weeks hack inspires you to see and appreciate your own potential and reach your healthy goals in a way that suits you.

Every Tuesday I share a Habit Hack. They are tricks I use in my personal life an with my PT-clients to make it easier for us to make changes in our everyday life. In my work it mostly revolves around health, meaning exercise, nutrition, sleep and stress. But the hacks can of course be used in any aspect of your life.

Habit hack: Stop on top.

Some times we’re super motivated and we look forward to every workout. Some times our motivation hits rock bottom and every workout feels like climbing Mount Everest. I want to start of by saying that it is OK to feel this was! Most of us go through this kind of fases, specilally if continous training is a new habit.

Without getting into too many detail about how the brain works I’m gonna explain a simple function that is important surind these periods. When we do something that is fun, endorphines and other chemicals that make us feel happy. Our brain saves information about the activity that says “this was fun, I want to do this again!”. On the other hand, if we find something boring the information saved is more like “ugh, that was not fun at all, I do not want to do that again!”. Meaning; when we train something we find fun and exciting we associate it with positive emotions and if we struggle we’ll get negative associations to training. So if we have a strong core we will probably find that ab training is more fun than doing push ups.

Maybe you’ve already figured out where I’m going with this? Fun workouts are workouts that get done! So when your motivation is low, don’t procrastinate, instead go to the gym and do only what you find fun. This way your bran will rebuild the positive associations to training. Do you like running, run. Do you like heavy lifting, go and do some heavy dead lifts. Is ab training your favourite, do that. Just make sure you go to the gym on the days you’ve previously decided to go so that you don’t loose your habit. Your motivation will slowly but surely come back and when that happens you will be there, at the gym, ready to welcome it back. Isn’t that great? Not having to start over, and just picking up instead!

To have fun during your workouts is important for your habit to stick. Always make sure you finish your sessions with an exercise you find fun to make it easier for you to come back the next time. Stop on top!

I hope this hack helps you to stick to your new and wonderful habit of exercising.

Every Tuesday I share a Habit Hack. They are tricks I use in my personal life an with my PT-clients to make it easier for us to make changes in our everyday life. In my work it mostly revolves around health, meaning exercise, nutrition, sleep and stress. But the hacks can of course be used in any aspect of your life.

Habit hack: Start over smart.

Have you ever tried to incorporeate a new habit? Have you ever had to start over? And over, again and again? Weather it’s quitting sugar, going to bed earlier, drink more water or exercise regularly most of us will get off track at some point and hopefully decide to give it another shot. But when do we start over? This is where you’ll make or brake your new habit. When we decide to start over we usually choose to do it on a clean slate (read more about the magical clean slate here). Which in turn we usually choose to put on days like a Monday, January 1st or when we come back from our holiday. The problem here is that at the same time that you choose this clean slate, you also choose to brake the habit until said day. And if you continue this way the Mondays will just keep passing by and your bad habit will just grow stronger by the week. That’s why you need to start over in a smart way!

Instead of starting over the next day, week, month or even year, you will use blocks. Each day is built out of 4 blocks; morning, noon, afternoon and evening. If you go off track on one of the blocks, you just get back on for the next! This way you will succeed a lot more often than you fail and that fact will give your brain the positive reinforcement that it loves so much and make it easier for you to continue with your new healthy habit.

I used to use gold stars. You know the sticker ones that you used to use in arts and crafts. On each day in my calendar I’d put one gold star for each block in which I’d kept my habit. So if I forgot to drink water all morning but then remembered the hole rest of the day, I’d get three stars. In case you don’t love arts and crafts, organizing and planning as much as my nerdy self, you can just give yourself mental gold stars. They work just as good 😉

I hope this hack makes it easier for you to get back on track with your new healthy habits!

Every Tuesday I share a Habit Hack. They are tricks I use in my personal life an with my PT-clients to make it easier for us to make changes in our everyday life. In my work it mostly revolves around health, meaning exercise, nutrition, sleep and stress. But the hacks can of course be used in any aspect of your life.

Habit hack: Plan your exceptions

Building a new habit takes a lot of effort and we want to minimize the amount of spontaneous decisions that you have to make. You want to make sure that as many things as possible just happen because that is what you’ve decided in advance. You don’t eat sugar because you’ve decided not to, you exercise after work because that’s what you decided you want to do. Things are under control, and we humans like to feel like we are in control. But let’s face it, sometimes we actually do want to treat ourselves with an exception. But even in these situations we need to be prepared so that the exception doesn’t become the habit.

It is up to only you to decide when and where exceptions are in order but here are some guidelines on how to make sure you don’t trick yourself and fall into the loop hole trap!

Snobbery exceptions

This is when you treat yourself because something is rare. Maybe you are going to an extra nice restaurant so you treat yourself with a fine dessert. Or you get a chance to train with an amazing trainer if you go to the gym on a different day than you usually do.

Special occasion exception

Maybe Christmas just isn’t Christmas without your homemade toffees? So you should treat yourself to them on Christmas eve to make sure you really get that Christmas spirit. With the special occasion exceptions you need to make sure you limit the exception to a day, in this case December 24th. Otherwise it’s very easy that you make an exception for the Christmas holidays which can easily stretch from December 13th to January 6th!

Vacation exceptions

Vacations are especially important to plan for since all of our routines are thrown out the window. Before you leave for your vacation decide how you are going to handle it. Will you work out at all and if yes, how many times during your being away? How will you approach sweets or alcohol, will you have some, none or unlimited? Even though you decide not to exercise at all during your vacation you haven’t lost the habit because as soon as you get home the exception stops and you go back to your routines.

Key question to ask yourself before you plan an exception:

How will I feel about this decision afterwards?

To keep a healthy habit it’s important that you don’t feel deprived of anything. So even though you’ve got a new way of viewing your intake of food, sleeping patterns or exercise (or whatever it you are working on bettering) you should still be able to feel that you are allowed to do whatever you please. You are a responsible adult and you have chosen to make these changes for yourself, and no one else. However you chose to plan your exceptions, the fact that you are planing for them makes them limited, controlled and ok.

I hope this hack makes it easier for you to live your new and healthy lifestyle!

Every Tuesday I share a Habit Hack. They are tricks I use in my personal life an with my PT-clients to make it easier for us to make changes in our everyday life. In my work it mostly revolves around health, meaning exercise, nutrition, sleep and stress. But the hacks can of course be used in any aspect of your life.

Habit hack: To stumble is not to fail

When we take on the challenge of forming a new habit it’s often easy in beginning. We get quite far on our initial motivation but sooner or later that motivation, that to begin with was so strong, starts to fade. This is when we need our strategies to maintain our good habits, like the ones that I write about here every Tuesday. But regardless of how foreseeing we’ve been with our if then-planing and pairing strategies we are bound to stubble on the way. This weeks habit hack is about we tackle these stumbles.

When we stumble it’s important that we don’t see it as a total failure but rather as a helpfully guide, that shows you when and where you’ll need to concentrate your effort in the future. It is also important that we don’t judge ourselves to harshly when we slip. Some think that the feeling of guilt and self judgement is a good thing, because it will keep you from doing the same mistake again in the future, but actually this is wrong. People who feel less guilt and are more forgiving and understanding of them selves tend to have better chances of regaining their discipline and self control. So instead of looking at your stumbles as evidence that we are weak, undisciplined or lazy we should see them as a natural part of the habit-formation-process.

Here are som uplifting mantras to use in case of a stumble: “It happens” “We’ve all done it” “I’ll do t differently next time” “What I do most days matters more than what I do once in a while”

I hope that this weeks hack helps you be a little bit nicer to yourself in you journey towards a healthier you!

Every Tuesday I share a Habit Hack. They are tricks I use in my personal life an with my PT-clients to make it easier for us to make changes in our everyday life. In my work it mostly revolves around health, meaning exercise, nutrition, sleep and stress. But the hacks can of course be used in any aspect of your life.

Habit hack: If then.

When we decide to form new habits, we are often excited and super motivated. We envision how we’ll work out regularly, make healthy food choices and get to bed on time. I love the fantasy of ​​this perfectly balanced lifestyle. Then reality checks in. In the real world, no one has understood that you are a new person. Friends want to have a drink, sweets are offered as usual at the office and your partner suggests seeing a movie late at night. “If everyone else could just stops suggesting these things, everything would go so smoothly!”.

You can not change others, you can only change yourself. Even though you’ve done a major change in yourself, your sorroundings haven’t. And you being prepared for this is essential for you to succeed in adapting to your new lifestyle. If then-planning a simple tool to tackle the speed bumps that real life serves you.

Here are some examples of my own if thens:If I am invited to go for a “fika” (google it), then I’ll order only a coffee.If I want to get an administrative work done, then I make sure to be alone so I don’t get distracted by others.If I have planned a workout, then I change into active wear asap so I don’t have time to make up an excuse.If I get a sweet tooth, then I wait to buy anything until I’ve eaten a main course.If I’m staying at a hotel, then I only eat the sweets from the breakfast buffet (like croissants, nutella, etc.) on the last day of my stay.

If then planning helps you to cope with high-risk situations. Because if you’ve decided how to act in a certain situation beforehand, you don’tneed to make any decisions in the moment. You’ve already decided what to do when you’re invited for a drink or when you’re going on vacation, or get hungry for chocolate.

Now take a moment and identify your high-risk situations and decide how to act when they show up. I hope this hack will help you to live your life the way you want to!